


Loving Him Was Red

by Resamille



Series: Colors [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, I'm Sorry, M/M, klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 06:07:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9109933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resamille/pseuds/Resamille
Summary: Loving him was red, just like the suit Lance now wears in Keith's absence.





	

They rush him from the field. Shiro and Hunk and Pidge go back out to finish off the Galra drones, but they leave Lance to cling to Keith's hand as Allura and Coran push him into a healing pod with fumbling, scared hands. Lance has to let go for the tech to work, so he brushes his fingers over Keith's forehead, let's his thumb linger on the lips he's memorized better than his own, and then retreats, slumping against Allura's tall frame as the pod closes.

Keith looks peaceful, like he's sleeping, but the bruise on his cheek has just begun to color when they put him in the pod, and his pretty complexion is marred by scratches from their earlier scuffle. Allura smooths out Lance's hair in a motherly gesture, untangling, and it's her gentle prods that eventually nudge him to his room to wash the blood—Galra, his, _Keith's—_ from his body.

Lance barely makes it back to his room when he ends up running to the connecting bathroom to throw up whatever he'd ingested earlier that day. He doesn't remember anything before Keith against his back, surrounded while they infiltrate the Galra ship, reckless Keith bursting into the control room and Lance sighing in relief when there's no one there, Keith looking up in surprise when Lance shouts the warning after he hears the shot fire... And Keith falling back, blood staining his suit, when _it's not enough_ , _when Lance isn't enough_.

Shiro finds Lance sitting on the bathroom floor, still a mess of blood and sweat and dirt and tears because he can't bring himself to move. Hope shoots through Lance, far too bright and optimistic, at the sight of him, but Shiro shakes his head, and, as if it's consolation, says: “The others got back safe though.”

And sure, Lance cares about Hunk and Pidge. They were his best friends at the Garrison, and he loves them even, but he's _in love_ with Keith, and he thinks if the others haven't noticed the developments in their relationship (they didn't hide it, but they weren't exactly open, either... they did what felt natural), then they have definitely figured it out by now because Lance is an absolutely broken, shaking mess.

Shiro lets out a soft sigh, maybe pity, maybe understanding, and helps to strip Lance of his suit, instructs him to stand while he turns on the shower and scrubs the blood from Lance's limbs, cleans the cuts stinging against his flesh. Lance is numb—he doesn't have the willpower or the strength to complain about Shiro babying him or let out any noise except a hiss against his teeth when Shiro prods a particularly sensitive wound a little too hard.

Shiro pulls Lance from the water, towels him off, and forces him to put some clothes on. “Get some sleep,” he orders, and then his gaze softens significantly. “Try to,” he murmurs, pulling Lance into a hug so tight it threatens to out-squeeze his mother's. Shiro pulls back, holding Lance's face between his hands, and forces Lance to look up at him. His worried gaze lingers for a heartbeat, before Shiro presses a kiss to Lance's forehead and guides him out of the bathroom. “He'll be okay,” he promises as Lance falls into his bed in a heap and curls into a quivering ball.

Shiro lets out another sigh, pulls a blanket over Lance's body, and leaves.

Lance is not okay.

 

Keith is not okay.

It's been a week, and he hasn't come out. Lance is a nervous wreck, jumpy and quick-to-anger at the slightest of provocations. Pidge has stopped trying to interact with him altogether, after the first few times he nearly bit their hands off. Hunk sometimes brings him food or tea, or leaves what treats he can find outside Lance's door. They usually remain untouched.

Lance probably would have withered away to nothing if it wasn't for Shiro. He would come into Lance's room at least once a day, force him to eat some small something, or drink some water—sometimes Lance would actually keep it down—whispering quiet phrases of hope. “Give him a day or two more; he was pretty beat up,” or “Keith wouldn't want you tearing yourself up so much; eat something,” or “Allura says he looks better today; he wouldn't heal if he were dead.”

But as it goes from one week to two... to a month, all of Shiro's gentle condolences mean less and less. Lance has to face the reality, and they've only been lucky that they haven't needed to form Voltron, and they haven't faced anything that needs Lance's full attention either because he's been just as much a wreck on the battlefield as he has been in the castle.

He doesn't hear Blue anymore.

Instead, he feels a tugging in his bones and an anger that festers in his heart because he's avoiding the truth he has to face: that Keith isn't coming back.

He's sitting, knees pulled to his chest, at the dining table. Pidge casts him a concerned look, but he glares at them, and they let out a huff, turning away. Hunk sets a cup of tea in front of Lance that he blatantly ignores. Shiro sighs, pity or understanding—Lance still isn't sure—and rises to call the meeting to a start.

“Allura thinks it's time we take measures to account for the... absence of one of our paladins.”

Allura looks weary but regal as she sits at the head of the table. She doesn't rise in place of Shiro when he sits down, and instead leans forward. “Yes,” she confirms, and her gaze locks on Lance. “There is something else, as well. I am connected to the castle, and therefore, the lions. I don't have the same ties as the paladins do, but it is intended to help me find their best pilots. It is how I chose you in the first place.”

At this point, with the princess's intense gaze on him, he has a feeling this applies to Lance alone and not the others.

“And as such, I can tell with a paladin is no longer fit for his lion.”

“That can happen?” Pidge asks, but they go unanswered.

“I'll leave, if that's what you want,” Lance says, voice hoarse with disuse and void of emotion.

“No,” Allura says, and it's an order. “No. Sometimes a pilot can go through such a drastic change that their alignments differ from their original positions.” She sighs, and closes her eyes as if the words pain her. “Lance, I want you to pilot the red lion.”

“No,” he says immediately, but still without feeling. The only coping mechanism he has is this floating numbness, this half-dead existence where he doesn't know day from night and the bitterness seeps into his blood and replaces the hope, because the hope _hurts_. Piloting Red means leaving his emotionless purgatory; it means accepting one thing and moving on, and right now Lance can cling to the memories and the faintest glimmer of promise because despite how much it hurts, he can't let it go either.

It's tearing him apart, leaving him in shreds, but he'd rather have it that way than go on without Keith.

“Lance,” Allura starts. “I know that it feels like you're replacing Keith, but you're not. It's rare, but sometimes there can be two existing paladins for the same lion—and—and I can pilot Blue.”

“Why don't you pilot Red, then?” Lance snaps, even though he knows in his heart that would be worse. If Keith isn't here to take care of Red, he would have wanted Lance to watch out for her, and Lance knows that.

“I can't,” Allura says sullenly. “I have tried, but the red lion is too unruly for me to control.”

“I'm not doing it,” Lance says, stern. “I'm not—I can't—” but then he chokes on a sob he's been holding back for the past month, and his resolve shatters because he has to face this. He already knew, he already knew, he just has to accept it. He couldn't hear Blue. It's time to say goodbye.

It's time to say goodbye.

He isn't just talking about his lion.

 

Lance thought that nothing could surpass the pain of the past month and a half. Nothing was worse than the waiting and the hoping and the suffering. Nothing was worse than remembering all of the promises that would never be kept.

Lance said he would take Keith back to meet his family. They'd walk on the beach, watch the sunset turn the ocean to lava. Keith had never seen the ocean, never tasted the salt on the breeze.

Keith would show Lance the plateau he found in the desert, where there was nothing to obscure the stars and the sky. They would both laugh because seeing it from earth would be nothing after seeing it from the lions, up close and personal.

They were going to go to the mountains, where it was cold as the night at the Garrison, but where there was _snow_ , and they'd both experience it for the first time, and then go inside and share a blanket and hot chocolate in front of a fire.

They were going to date and be normal and _happy_. Lance never told Keith, but he'd even planned out exactly how he wanted to propose.

Red lets out a mournful noise, and Lance pats the control panel. “I know, I know,” he says, and wipes the tears from his cheeks with his sleeve. He didn't know he had tears left, after he first walked into Red two weeks ago and was hit with such a wave of _Keith_ that he fell to his knees and cried and cried and cried. He fell asleep like that, a ball on the floor of the red lion, and had pretty much moved into Red, leaving his room abandoned.

He doesn't know which is worse. Lance's room—his bed—is filled with far more intimate memories (though there was that one time in the pilot seat Lance is currently settled in, and Red hadn't spoken to Keith for a _week_ in retaliation) but Keith's lion is filled with his presence: scent and personality and lingering mindscape that leaks over Lance's new connection with Red.

There's a single picture taped above the pilot seat. Pidge had once somehow rigged together a makeshift Polaroid camera, but the colors were off, tinted an odd shade of blue-green, and there was limited “film.” Pidge let them each take a picture of something, and Keith? Keith took a picture of Lance, looking over his shoulder in surprise but with a smile on his face when it was Keith's voice who had drawn his attention.

Lance has his own picture—Pidge took it of he and Keith, arms draped over each others shoulders and laughing because Lance had been trying to get Keith to _smile_ , but he did his job too well, and they're booth cackling too hard to look good for the picture. He has others, too, of his family and back home that had been stuffed in his wallet. They all wait patiently in a box behind the pilot seat, because Lance doesn't have the heart to put them up.

Red will never be _his_ lion.

 

Lance blinks the sleep from his eyes, tries to push his consciousness back into the dream. He was with Keith. He was happy. Lance was sitting, presumably in the the pilot seat of Red, and Keith had his knees planted on either side of Lance's legs, pinning him with the warmth of his touch, while their tongues tangled languidly.

For a moment, Lance remembered his taste clearly. He felt the smooth of Keith's skin under his fingers. He breathed in the scent of his lover, his beloved, _mi coraz_ _ó_ _n_ , he had called him, and Keith melted against him. For a moment, Lance remembered what it was like to breathe the same air and share the same thoughts and feel like one entity.

And then it's ripped from him by the cold, waking reality. Red grunts against his mind, a nudge and comfort and annoyance all at once. Lance jerks up straight in the pilot seat and hits the armrest. “Fine, I'm up!” he growls. “What do you want?”

Red pushes at his mind again, and then ignores him. Lance can practically see the cat turning away and stubbornly refusing to look in his direction, because Red is an ass like that sometimes. It's something Keith would do, too, when he was upset, but didn't want to anger Lance either. He'd turn away, face the problem when he had his temper under control. Lance had learned Keith did it because he cared, because he didn't want to say something he'd regret.

Never know when the words might be the last they share.

Lance feels the breath catch in his throat, and he clutches at his chest as the sob rips from him. He can't do this, he can't. It's been three months since... Since, and Lance is a shadow of who he once was. If this is the type of person who fits the red lion, Lance wonders if there was a time where Keith wasn't broken, and what was that boy like? Was he happy? Did Lance make Keith happy when they were together, even thought Keith was still Red's?

Is there hope that Lance will ever feel again without the stab of heartbreak?

Three months, and each day that passes, another sliver of Lance's soul is sucked into dark nothingness. He wants it to stop hurting. He wants to forget, but he also _loved_ Keith. He still loves Keith, even when he's gone, though his body is still trapped in the cold prison of the healing pod. Lance goes to look sometimes, to remind himself how much it _hurts_ to remember. To remind himself how much it hurts to love. To remind himself why he lets himself waste away like this, until his mind is broken and he can finally find peace.

But then he finds himself drawn in by the curve of Keith's jaw, or the way his hair curls at his temple, or the hint of collarbone peeking from his suit, and Lance falls in love all over again, and it's all for nothing.

He's worthless. He's worthless and alone and left with shards of Keith that stab him like broken glass as he tries to gather them up and put them back together.

Lance lets out a cry, anger and grief and self-blame, and slams his hand against the armrest. Red remains silent. Lance digs his fingers into his upper arms, nails leaving crescents, and then drags his hands down, red lines marking their path on his skin. “Why?” he screams at the darkened window looking out into the hangar. “Why me? Why Keith?”

“Why any of you?” he shouts at Red, jumping up and pacing across the cockpit. “Why'd you pick us? Why why why! We were nothing! We were boring and normal... ish and sure, it wasn't a great life, but the worst of it was I missed my mom! And now look at me! I'm a fucking mess because some fucking space lion had to pick me and Keith to fly them and save the universe or some shit, and then I went and fucking _fell in love_.”

Red doesn't respond.

“Answer me!” Lance cries. He pauses in his pacing to kick at the pilot seat. “Dammit, Red! Why me? I was _okay_ , and then I met Keith again and everything was better but _worse_ and now that he's gone, the better part is gone too and all that's left is the _worse worse worse worse_. Fuck, Red! Tell me why!”

Lance is panting, gasping for air, and collapses into the pilot seat, weak from days of refusing food and care. He groans and rubs a hand over his face. “Why, Red? Why am I special? Why is—was—Keith special?”

Finally, Red responds, a rare moment of not being infuriatingly cryptic by actually speaking directly to his mind: _do you regret it?_

“What?” Lance grumbles, and reaches for a glass of water that tastes days old and probably is, if he's honest.

_Do you regret falling in love?_

“I don't know, Red,” Lance sighs, wiping at his mouth with a dirty sleeve. He frowns. “I'm going to go shower, maybe. And change. Maybe.”

 _I know Keith's answer,_ Red tells him, as if it's helpful.

“Whatever,” Lance says, and stumbles out of the lion.

But he knows Keith's answer already, and he knows his own answer too. Because his heart responded first before his lips could form words, and Red knows his heart far better than she knows his mouth. He could never regret Keith. None of it, not even the fights or the teasing or the awkward firsts or the embarrassing jokes or the nights spent in each others' arms while they traced their names in the stars.

Pidge makes a surprised screeching noise when Lance walks into the communal showers. He doesn't really like his room anymore—it feels too much like it's missing something, though whether the missing piece is the person Lance used to be or Keith, he's not sure—and avoids it if he can. Most of his stuff is in Red, anyway. He wasn't expecting anyone to be here, but Pidge is busy cleaning the mirrors, probably doing the same busywork Allura assigns, partly to keep their minds off the looming weight of their mission.

“Hey,” Lance offers quietly. “I—uh—do you mind if I...?”

“Oh, Lance,” they manage, and leap from the counter to wrap their small arms around his waist.

“I'm sorry,” he says, patting their head awkwardly.

“You're forgiven,” they say, and tug him over to the counter, where they hop back up and begin working through the tangles in his hair. Lance lets them, more for their sake than his, he tells himself, but he also feels some of the tension slip from his bones.

Pidge lets out a sad chuckle half-way through, and mutters against his hair, “Keith would have found this hilarious. You've never been such a mess, and having me, with my rats' nest, helping you?” They snort. “How ironic.”

Lance feels himself smiling sadly, heart clenching. “Yeah,” he whispers. “He would have liked it.”

It's then that Lance realizes that the team didn't just lose Keith that day, but they lost him too. And sure, it's small talk and dodging around the fact Lance is broken and will never be the same, but maybe Pidge and the others would be happy just to have him back, even as he is.

The thought warms some of the ice in his veins.

 

It takes three more months, twelve more one-sided yelling matches with Red and two with Blue, and seven more visits to Keith in the healing pod for Lance to feel some semblance of okay. Interspersed with those milestones are visits with others, who welcome him back with eager arms, and who slowly ease him into being a human again.

Allura lets him sleep against her lap in her room, because he still can't bear to go back to his, and sometimes he can't deal with staying in Red either because it's too close to Keith and he needs a break, and chance to let himself forget and deal with the guilt of it all in the morning. Coran lets him take over the control room when he needs it, if for nothing else but to look out into the vastness of space and feel _insignificant_ , because what pain can be that big when Lance is so, so small?

Hunk brings him food, or talks and talks and talks about all the food they found while Lance was out of it, if for no reason other than to fill the silence and ease Lance's thoughts. He's grateful for it, in the same way he's grateful to Allura for not judging him when he wants the simple bliss of disassociation. Hunk is kind and considerate, and steers far away from all things Keith because he cares far too much about Lance to want to inflict that pain.

Pidge does similar, filling the void of Lance's mind with their tech inventions, but they've far less wary of mentioning Keith. They'll bring Lance trinkets and stories and all sorts of things that remind them of Keith or Lance or home, and Lance is touched. Sure, he'll thank them and then spend the rest of the day in Red, sobbing, until he puts whatever they brought him in a box next to the photos, but he's touched by their thoughtfulness all the same.

And Shiro? Shiro takes the opposite approach. Shiro is Lance's last resort—when he's a mess of emotions and ready to open his bayard and end it all right then and there, he goes to Shiro. He takes him in, squeezes Lance tight enough that he can't move, until the helplessness and the hurt become bearable again. Shiro talks to him about Keith the entire time, reminds Lance of the good, of the friendship and the love. Shiro tells him of Keith before the Garrison, of the little dreamer boy that Lance wonders about, who would look to the sky and take Shiro's hand and spin tales for the constellations and fall in love with stars, and sometimes, _sometimes_ , Lance laughs.

In the meantime, they form Voltron seamlessly. It's far easier, with Allura's calming presence tying them together, but it's not the same. They all feel it—the tug towards the body in still in the castle, because Red still calls for him (she hasn't given up hope, and Lance still isn't sure if it's wistful or a sign, but he doesn't dare be optimistic). They're not as strong, and they all know that at some point they have to acknowledge the elephant in the room: that they need a new paladin. Allura can only fill in for so long before they need someone just as devoted and in tune with their lion as Keith was in order to ultimately beat the Galra.

Even as the idea flits through Lance's head, it leaves him shaking and clutching for the boy he's in love with but isn't there. He's not okay with it now, but maybe one day he can be. He has to be. Keith would want him to be strong.

And when Pidge or Shiro or any visitors find Lance sitting beneath the healing pod, forehead pressed against the cool material, they don't question it. He's known as the broken red paladin, who waits a lifetime for his _coraz_ _ó_ _n_ to wake, even though he knows it's hopeless and he himself gave up on it long ago. Even Red eventually stops calling to Keith, though she still keeps slivers of his presence entangled in the air of the cockpit, a constant reminder for Lance that she is wild and untameable and always, always belongs to Keith before him, and Lance isn't sure if he hates or loves that Red never truly gives up hope.

The world leaves him to mourn, to remember, to be in love.

Because there's a trend in red paladins that only they know. Yes, they are broken, and yes, the world has been cruel to them, and that's what everyone else sees in them, but they also fall in love like jumping into fire. They blaze and they blaze and they blaze until there's nothing of them left to give. Lance knows that flame far too well, and now he understands _why_ , as he'd yelled at Red so many times.

Red chose him because he was in love.

Red chose them because they were in love.

Broken, beaten, blazing love.

And now that Lance knows, he accepts it. He presses his hand against the pod, dreaming of a day when he sees Keith's breath fan out against the glass, and lets the love consume him whole, burning him up until he's nothing left but a monument to who Keith was and what he did and how he loved so strongly and so deeply that it changed them both, left them gasping for air in its wake.

And in the end, Lance is okay.

He's still a mess. He misses Keith, a lot. The universe has it out for him, they need a new paladin, and he hasn't seen a beach in ages. Each morning, he fights the urge to let the ache in his heart and the weight of it all drown him, but he's okay. He's _okay_.

Keith would be proud.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So. Wow. Um. yeah.  
> Due to the protests of a dear friend of mine, there's going to be an unofficial sequel to this which does have a happy ending, so think of it as a choose your own adventure.  
> Title and original fic inspiration from Red by Taylor Swift.  
> Translation note: mi corazón is Spanish for "my heart" and is a term of endearment.


End file.
